I just spent the last two days teaching a whole school of high school kids (13-21+ years of age) about HIV/AIDS facts, myths, and misconceptions. Myself and three other PCV’s were at St. Agnus High School, a private institution in Teyateyaneng (TY), Berea, where our friend, another PCV, is an English teacher. Because the kids in most all of the classes were so shy or, possibly, not used to the concept of open dialogue in the classroom, we found the most effective way to engage them in conversation was through passing out papers that they could write their questions anonymously for answering. I kept a handful of the questions from one class, Form A I think (youngsters, the equivalent of freshman), and would like to share what is on their minds (I have not altered or corrected their questions so if they don’t quite make sense at first dwell on it for a bit):

If I use plastic of bread as a condom when having sex with someone what will happen?

I heard that having sex standing a female can not be pregnant.

It does true that when it is your first time when having sex it is painful?

What if my partner has HIV and I kiss her?

If I heard clearly you said sex cannot be made by a male and a female only: how can people of the same kind have sex?

How much time does semen take to reach the uterus?

What if I have HIV and partner to don’t have HIV and we have use condoms. It be possible for me to be HIV?

Is it possible to tell my boyfriend when I have HIV?

What ARV’s means?

Can we use the method of masturbation?

Is there a cylinder that contains babilon nine which help woman to have children without having sex?

If I have sex with women who’s age is 25 years old and I am a boy aged 13 years can that women block my sperm? (X2)

Where does AIDS come from? (X2)

How have it entered from people?

How long does a sperm cell take time to work in an egg cell?

How do two partners both with AIDS infect further more AIDS?

Can a child get HIV because of his/her parents?

I want to make sex with a person have HIV. What should I do?

How many time can we have sex and woman become pregnant?

If my girlfriend have a virus and I want to have sex with him. She say we can have sex without condom if I refused she see I don’t love him. What can I do?

Can one get pregnant while she is virgin?

How can HIV be avoided?

Is it possible that a woman will get pregnant when having sex with other woman? And how do they do it (have sex)?

How can HIV be cured?

Do people suffering from AIDS have sex?

What if we make sex for 11 hours with a condom. What’s going to happen?

What HIV/AIDS caused by?

What if I double 4 or 6 condoms when having sex. What will happen?

What if I am not mature then I have sex with girlfriend/boyfriend about 15 years old, is that girl going to become fat?

As you can see there is an incredible variety of questions here. Some are a little nonsensical while others are extremely intelligent given the young age of the kids in this class. What became obvious to me after reflecting on these questions and the experience as a whole was that, 1) these kids know a lot about HIV; the basic facts and prevention methods can be recited word for word like a class of elementary school kids back at home saying the Pledge of Allegiance, 2) what facts they can repeat they do not understand, either functionally or scientifically, 3) there are a lot of myths concerning both HIV/AIDS and sex in general, none of them well conceived or logical, that inundate the youth here, and finally 4) I don’t think they have ever received a sex education course; they are, at this age, more interested in how sex works, both biologically and physically, than HIV/AIDS – how can we expect to teach anyone about HIV and AIDS when they don’t understand the basics of its primary mode of transmission?

When teaching anyone about HIV/AIDS there is no better way to transfer information than a demonstration. When teaching kids about HIV/AIDS there is nothing more exciting to them than seeing an plastic penis and a rubber vagina.

During our classes on HIV/AIDS the final thing we would do – a real crowd pleaser if you’re ever in the middle of a presentation and things aren’t going so well so take notes – is perform condom demonstrations. The kids would squeal with delight after I, like a father hiding candy from a child, would whip out a brown plastic penis model, with balls and all, from behind my back, pause for effect and the quieting of the giggles, and begin the demonstration of the correct application of a male condom. My favorite thing to do was, when showing them that the penis must be hard and erect during application of the condom, walk around the classroom and hit a desk or, on occasion, some kids’ head with the model.

In order to promote gender equality and female empowerment (damn credibility, I’ll use them in the same sentence) I would hold the penis and my partner in the presentation, a female, would put the condom on and talk the kids through the process; to me this was a strong example for showing them that condoms are something that both partners should take responsibility for.

After the male condom demonstration was over we had one more surprise for them – a rubber vagina for a female condom demonstration. When this model, too large for me to hide behind my back, was taken out of the plastic bag and revealed with as much gusto as we could muster the girls were too embarrassed to even look and the boys, mesmerized, were at a loss for words. They jumped out of their seats, leaned forward over their desks as far as they could manage, and stared with wide eyes and open, gaping mouths. During the demonstration, when the female condom was inserted into the vagina, the girls would wince and share uncomfortable glances with their friends and the boys, their loose jaws still open, would forget to swallow the spit in their mouths that had, by now, started dribbling out and down their still hairless chins.

I suppose it’s an inevitability that when you have a plastic penis and a rubber vagina in a classroom full of kids fascinated by sex and still not sure of how it works another demonstration of sorts is in order. What the crowd wanted, a question posed exclusively by the males in the class, was to see me insert the plastic penis into the rubber vagina and show them how to, ‘make sex.’ I suppose it would have been beneficial for them to see it, though I think they were asking more for their own amusement than out of curiosity. In the end I couldn’t do it for them because, alas, the penis was too big.

People constantly ask you for things. Strangers will say, literally, ‘give me money,’ ‘give me your hat,’ ‘give me your bag,’ ‘give me your shirt,’ etc. Now, while I’m pretty sure they’re not trying to rob me I think those that say such things do mean it to some extent. I’ve learned to joke around with these requests for the most part but in all honestly the most frequent request, the one for money, has been trying my patience though that is not the point of this story.

The LPPA (Lesotho Planned Parenthood Association) is an NGO involved in local HIV/AIDS prevention and care efforts. They have, for use by teachers, peer educators, and support groups, rubber models of vaginas to use during female condom demonstrations. A friend of mine picked up one these models this afternoon and dropped it off for me at the school I will be teaching at tomorrow. This model is, well, sized to near realistic proportions and begins just below the rib cage and ends with two leg stumps just below the hips. It is, needless to say, a bit cumbersome to carry and nearly impossible to conceal while traveling.

As the story goes, after picking up the model my friend hopped in a 4+1 (a taxi) to the school. The way taxi’s work around here is that they don’t leave until there are four people in them – hence the 4 (passengers) plus 1 (driver) moniker. She was seated in the back of the cab, holding the model on her lap, next to a pair of men who, as she put it, couldn’t stop staring at it. Now, as I said before, in most situations, and I hate to generalize but its true, people will just ask you to give them things. There’s no bartering going on; there’s no purchasing; there’s no wheeling and dealing. These guys, however, the ones seated right next to her, could only say, ‘Ke bokae?,’ or, in English, ‘How much?’ No, ‘give me,’ no, ‘I want it,’ just, ‘how much?’ He must have really wanted the thing.

There was a dance party last night, the first real Basotho party I’ve attended where I’m the only foreigner. Admittedly, it was actually a graduation party for the care facilitators of the Lesotho Red Cross so the people were kind of old and there wasn’t really any booze involved. The main attraction of the night was the refreshments table where people flocked in droves to hoard, not graze, over the chips, candy, and soda. Some even went so far as to grab empty plastic bags out of trash cans and fill them up by the handful like some greedy kid at Halloween, thinking no one is watching, at the doorstep of someone who has decided to leave their candy in a basket on their doorstep.

The highlight for me, however, was when the music turned on and the people started dancing. Lesotho is known around here as a singing and dancing culture – totally true, speaking from my experience – and no one is shy about getting down on the dance floor. It’s pretty much impossible for me to describe the scene from which I derived so much joy and the best I can do to provide a visual is this: imagine a large, sparsely filled hall in the middle of a Catholic convent filled with a bunch of grandfathers and huge grandmothers, think BMI well over 30, getting down to accordion driven techno music and a lone dude, overweight to the point of having man-breasts, roaming around the crowd and rubbing his belly and boobies slowly, but rhythmically, while shaking his hips like a salsa dancing pro. It was hilarious.

I just had the most awkward car ride experience of my life. On my way back from the Red Cross Care Facilitators Workshop I hitched a ride in a pickup truck to get home. It was a small single cab (think: ¾ Ford Ranger-size) pickup and I sat in between two well fed men while straddling the shifter, with one foot in each well and a pile of papers and a can of Coca-Cola in my hands. During the entire drive, about an hour or so, I endured the uncomfortable physical situation of having the drivers’ hand placed either on the knob of the shifter – which had an unusually long throw and, thus, was placed well into depths of my crotch for gears two and four – or on my right knee (cars are right-hand drive here and drive on the left-hand side of the road). The drive is quite mountainous and curvaceous and one must shift constantly so I understand the need for keeping ones hand on the shifter knob but, really, since when did my knee start looking like an arm rest?

Starting on the 18th I’ve been at a weeklong Red Cross Care Facilitators workshop in Mohobong, Leribe. Myself, another PCV working with the Red Cross in Berea, our respective counterparts, the head of the German Red Cross project in Lesotho, her respective counterpart, and 35 care facilitators from Leribe and Berea gathered in a Catholic convent called ‘Lapeng la Lerato’ or ‘House of Love.’

With showers, running water, a real toilet, and free meals for a week I was happy to be there. One of the sisters that I met there, however, ruined what could have been a forgettable week of relaxation into a stomach churning experience.

I can’t remember her name but I’ll never forget the voice. She sounded like a holy Darth Vader. She was a stern looking woman who looked about 40 that came from Uganda, didn’t speak Sesotho but did manage a passable English, who came here as a missionary. She spoke with the other PCV and me for a brief time about where we came from, what were doing here, and how long (or short) we were going to stay. I assume because of the religious nature that brought her here, a vision or a call from God, she took particular offense to what she perceived to be a grossly short stay. She probably won’t leave until she gets another one so, as far as she’s concerned, she’s here indefinitely. Truthfully, I can’t argue with her point. Sure it’s short when you imagine all the work that can and needs to be done, the friends you’ll make, and the new sights and sounds to experience, but it’s long when you think of the time you’ll be spending away from friends, family and, well, home (“Such a long, long time to be gone, and a short time to be there”).

Now, as far as my friend and I could tell, other than this little disagreement things were all good with this lady. The next morning, however, as we were walking down the service line grabbing breakfast she said to us, as she was placing a fried egg with a square of spam on top onto our plates from behind the counter, ‘You are going to die.’ Please keep in mind that I likened her voice to a Darth Vader with broken English so the way it actually sounded was just as terrifying as the words that were spoken. The first time this happened I actually kind of jumped back and ran away from her. It’s just not something you say to somebody and I refuse to think of it as some cross-cultural misunderstanding. The second time it happened I wasn’t quite as surprised and asked her, admittedly, feebly why she was saying that to us. She kind of smiled, I wouldn’t call it a genuine smile – it looked awfully crooked to me – and then turned her attention to the next person in line. The third time I had to endure this sick maniac and her perverted prophesizing was yesterday morning and I didn’t even bother to acknowledge her or the turds coming out of her mouth. Big mistake. I think that after spurning her and her holy mission for three days straight she has cast a spell on us for, going on a day now, I’ve endured frequent bouts of violent diarrhea and my friend has spent all morning puking. I’ll be damned if that lady isn’t doing this to us.

I was out drinking with some, ‘host country nationals’ (=local folk) last night and got schooled on some of the meanings behind the names of beer brands. Actually, they’ve just made the brand names into a bunch of funny acronyms, most of which I forget. One example I still remember is that Castle means, ‘Children Attend School To Learn English.’ The one that I’m really writing this about because there’s no way I could forget it, one that is not so silly, perhaps because its true, is Lager, which stands for, ‘Last, Africans Get Equal Rights.’

Sesotho, the language of Lesotho, is traditionally a spoken form of communication and, to the best of my knowledge, was first transcribed into what continues to be an evolving form of written communication by the English during their era of colonialism. By and large the majority of elderly Basotho, the last of the four generations of people that I am able to distinguish around the village, no longer caretakers of the family but respected and well taken care of by their children/grandchildren/great-grandchildren/neighbors/friends are surprisingly able and self sufficient individuals though illiterate. This is, I imagine, due to the uselessness of written communication in the world in which they grew up in.

In less than a century it seems the Basothos’ dependence on written communication has undergone little change. In village life one does not discover a store by billboards advertising their goods and services sold inside buildings indistinguishable from the houses surrounding it but by word of mouth or simply asking someone, anyone really, where you can get what it is you desire. In the capital or any of the major camp towns billboards are still non-existent but signs both large and small advertising shops with surprisingly little variation of content or service and road signs offering directions to the endless hoard of taxi drivers and the few, and fortunate, private automobiles are present but unnecessary and largely unused. To find yourself lost or in need of a good or service (even health services) you are much better off asking someone for directions than pulling out a map and looking at street names (both of which don’t exist here) or referencing a directory of businesses or tourist guide (which don’t exist save for in very, very isolated incidences). In both village and city life alike it would seem that the dependence on verbal communication continues to dominate the necessity or use of its printed cousin.

But does this actually mean anything?

The only place and time in Lesotho that writing and the written word supersede or even replace talking is in the school system that in structure and philosophy closely resembles the American model that I cannot, due to my ignorance on the matter, compare in the much more productive areas of quality or content. Regardless of structure, philosophy, quality or content I wonder how or if a student growing up in a society so inundated with a lifestyle of spoken communication responds, comprehends, or relates to this form of education. Is it, as I seem to have encountered countless times, that these students merely memorize the words of the text in such a way that they can rewrite and recite them without every truly comprehending the meaning within them? At the risk of sounding pompous and disrespectful, have we forgotten the abstract nature of written communication and is this another example of an over-ambitious adoption of Western culture that this, or any society like it, may not be ready for?

Though this may seem farfetched I think it may be true to a very limited extent. I believe this would apply to the young adults and adults thrust into the system, exemplified by the normalcy of twenty-something’s in the primary and secondary schools, unlike the children brought up in it. Beyond the school system itself, however, is where the true problem is found. Adults, beginning with the elderly and to a lesser extent with each successive generation, who wish to obtain the knowledge of business and HIV/AIDS must reference books and pamphlets and, due to a lack of funds and educated professionals, not people. Whether it is a matter of illiteracy or unfamiliarity with reading for comprehension which is, by the way, for all of you who have already forgot, a major component of standardized testing in the US education system, I think I may use this assumption to guide me in adapting my teaching method to my audience.

Yup, they’re still being dicks. I suppose that’s not much of an update if you’re looking for progress or change for that matter. When they told me on the 11th that I would be attending a two week long workshop the next day I had my bags packed and everything ready to go and waited around my house for two days for them to pick me up before they told me that they wouldn’t be picking me up until the 17th.

I haven’t figured the analogy out completely yet but the donga, a growing rift due to erosion poor soil control, that runs throughout Lesotho has got to be some weird natural manifestation of the problems the people here face.

The whole village hasn’t had water since last Friday (9/8/06). I’ve survived fine as I horded it when it was plentiful and filled some extra buckets I had just in case this sort of thing happened. Nonetheless, I’ve been trying to conserve water by not bathing or doing dishes and have managed to use only one and a half buckets since the shortage began.

My host family had a nice store of water in 55 gallon drums and has since managed to acquire some fresh water from an unknown source once they ran out yesterday. Some other less fortunate families have been going to the donga and filling up buckets from that filthy cesspool, where people wash clothes, throw trash, urinate, etc, that runs around the village. I really hope they boil that water first.

My counterpart from the Lesotho Red Cross called yesterday afternoon to inform me for the first time ever that we (the directors of the Lesotho and German Red Cross, Lesotho Red Cross project coordinators, their newly trained care facilitators, and two new Peace Corps volunteers, myself included) would be leaving today for a ten day workshop (think: company retreat = +/-bonding time). The details were hardly provided to me and the only definite information I was able to obtain during our truncated conversation was the location and duration of our trip. He told that he would call me later that evening to give me the specifics of transport or, more specifically, how I would end up getting there.

Well, of course, I never received a phone call.

So, now, it’s 8:30 in the morning and I still have no idea what is going on. At this point I am completely expecting him to just show up at my doorstep at some point today, unannounced, assuming that I’ll be ready, set, go to leave at that very instant.

From past interactions with this dude I know that he is always late, up to three hours (and that’s only been for the three meetings we have ever had), and not one to keep me abreast of information or progress within his group of care facilitators. Furthermore, I was informed by him that his superiors told him that there was no longer enough money in the Red Cross coffers for a transportation allowance for me so I can no longer go to his office (two taxi rides, about an hour, and R14 in each direction) to either coordinate with him or keep myself updated with the goings-on of Red Cross efforts in Leribe. I think what I’m beginning to see is that I’m either going to have to relinquish all hopes of working with the Red Cross while I’m here or do it on my on tab – neither of which are desirable options to me. I would like very much to work with the Red Cross because it is a large, far reaching international organization (supposedly well funded) with strong ties to the Lesotho Ministry of Health and the newly formed National Aids Committee, an autonomous government agency responsible to only the Prime Minister himself (or herself, if it were a her) that I believe will continue to play an important role in Lesotho’s ‘fight against HIV/AIDS.’ Truthfully, however, in my limited interactions with their organization I have noticed one large flaw – they are insistent on doing things their way and ‘by the book’ so their current approach to training is neither specific to the setting or context (country, village vs. city, male vs. female, etc) or responsive to problems they may encounter and thus not open for adaptation to the situations they are working in. Despite all the advantages of working with their organization and the opportunities I see for working with them to improve their system I refuse to pay for my own transportation.

When any group applies for a Peace Corps volunteer there are certain guidelines that both sides are made well aware of that help to define the Volunteer’s relationship with their hosting organization. One of these is that the hosting organization is to pay for all work related transportation costs for the volunteer. It is under the principle of this agreement and understanding made between our organizations before we agreed to our current collaboration that I refuse to pay, and am thus willing to, at this point, let pass this opportunity.

What do I do now, today, as I wait for either a phone call or a car to show up at my door expecting me to heed to their immediate commands like a dog tied to an ever shorter leash? Should I wait for him to show up having not packed, not yet bathed, and not yet changed and make him wait or should I be ready, set, go to leave whenever he decides to show up? I think I’ll go with the latter and lead by example and try to personify the ideals of the professionalism expected from the both of us and let my actions speak first and, when the time is right, bring up the problems I see and, hopefully, have an intelligent and productive conversation with him and, only if necessary, his superiors, about our future work together.

I came here as an HIV/AIDS advisor, well trained in the biology of health and the management and creation of health programs and services, and I think I could handle such a position reasonably well and at least leave the organization I was working with, supposing they were doing related things, in an improved state after my two years here.

Well, as I wrote before, my job, my assessment of community needs, and my conversations with people about their wants are thus far exclusively business oriented. From the woman, defeated in appearance but lively in conversation, slouched over a piece of cardboard selling tomatoes piled into pyramids of four in the shade of an abandoned building on the side of the road to the man, a drunk by night and weekend but by all accounts a successful and productive individual by day who started and now manages a tree nursery that has by all means created and/or answered a demand for his products, what people want here is money and answers.

I have decided to give them neither.

Succumbing to social pressure and local needs assessment I have decided to take a step into the unknown and teach business classes here in my village and, hopefully, in surrounding villages on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. I do not at this point have the resources or knowledge to begin teaching but I plan to, broadly, cover the topics of accounting, marketing, and business management. The Peace Corps office in Maseru has, as I’ve been told, the materials I require but as I’m not allowed to travel there for another two-plus months I’ve had to tell people that things are going to have to be put on hold for the time being. Though necessary and the premise for holding these classes, the materials and knowledge are truthfully only the rocks on the surface of what I would like to teach.

Money, answers, money or answers, and money and answers – I could probably provide both quite easily. Funding and grants are widely available and acquiring them would only require a successful application and time. Similarly, I’ve got access to a whole lot of answers, right or wrong.

Is this what they really need though – money and answers?

If I provide them with these two things that they ask me for what will happen when I leave and the money is no longer there and their questions go unanswered? What is going to happen then, in the future? In two years time, when I leave and the future has come to be the present, I hope to provide them not with the ‘money and answers’ themselves but the means to acquire them both through their own determination and intelligence; through holding classes I hope to not only give people the knowledge of a business student but the creative thinking abilities and drive to find them independently. For example, many companies in America pride themselves on the ‘culture’ of their companies as reflected by the attitudes and mannerisms of their employees and not necessarily the specific knowledge or information they might possess for they can always be taught.

Writing now philosophically as a strict capitalist (which I am not claiming or denying to be), I feel I must therefore teach them the principles of ‘survival of the fittest’ and its relevance in business. I want them to learn to be creative, patient, clever, and, above all, aggressive in their search for success – the way I see it now is that people need more of a change in attitude than a business education though my intent is to provide both. People here are too willing to accept handouts or the lack thereof and sit idle on their haunches waiting for, well, nothing. Somewhere between forty and fifty percent of the population is unemployed and my own observations lead me to believe much of this stems from a lack of effort or an attitude of defeat.

Some may argue that what I am doing is wrong, that these principles are hurtful to the individual and thus harmful to their society but I would respond that I am doing nothing more than giving the people what they want (material goods and services and what they need, access to medical care) and the means to acquiring it. A copout, perhaps, but, as the Peace Corps mission statement goes, I came here to help, to learn about their culture and have them learn about mine and I feel that to come in and pretend to be a benevolent volunteer preaching personal principles and beliefs that obviously go against the American way of life is condescending and disrespectful. Whether we like it or not the foreign governments and peoples and organizations that request Peace Corps volunteers do so because they want an American, a person that is the product of a society of, like it or not, capitalist ideals and practices. In order to fulfill our duties as a Peace Corps volunteer we must suck it up and teach them what we can about American ‘prosperity’ and how to get it. And, just maybe, the truth of ‘learn[ing] about their culture’ is learning more about ourselves by learning more about where we came from.

On my way to the internet café today I noticed two men on the side of the road working on a small, indiscrete green box buried between a pair of street vendors hawking straw brooms and pints of Vaseline in used liquor bottles. The front of the box was unfixed, opening up to an incomprehensible jumble of wires and I noticed, on the ground amongst the various tools of the electricians’ trade strewn about, a voltmeter; it was grey with a yellow rubber bumper encasing it, dulled and dirtied with use, and a dial sat just below center on its’ interface, tiny words circumventing it like numbers on the face of a watch.

I instantly recognized the voltmeter not by brand name or model but by how similar it looked in form and design to the ones my Dad has back at home, the ones he used to design and the company he continues to work for, Fluke Engineering. Curious if it could in fact have come from that same company but not wanting to draw their attention away from their job or, for that matter, toward me, I tried, as I continued on my way to the internet cafe, to get as close as possible and indiscreetly identify the manufacturer’s name. So, slowing my pace ever so slightly and veering the line of my now lazy saunter toward the sidewalk I looked, eyes scanning the object sitting in the dust no more than a meter away, but could not read anything definite and see any symbols or logos by which to learn the manufacturer of this voltmeter. Though disappointed I continued on, my mind quickly drifting to the emails and other correspondences I was to encounter shortly and all thoughts related to the previous thirty seconds immediately vanished, replaced by the excitement of hearing from friends and family and details of life back home.

Half a block down, on the opposite side of the street I approached the café, a pickup truck parked haphazardly in front, three men in light conversation standing near its’ hood just in front of the stoop, doors open but the inside mysteriously dark and the computer screens arranged on the far wall, black. After I came up to them and we greeted each other and exchanged our pleasantries I inquired as to the internets current status as experience has told me that their phone lines are often disrupted or their computers are in some unexplainable state of disarray. Well, today, like so many before it, the internet was not working because...there was no electricity.

This problem, a first, caught me slightly off guard until, moments later, my mind turned first to the green box, the men beside the road, that tangle of wires, and then finally to that blasted voltmeter. Remembering the sorry state of the box and finally adding one to the two plus two equals five that had been in front of me all along I surmised that the wait for power to be restored would be very long indeed. Disappointed (I haven’t experienced a real sense of frustration since I’ve arrived at site; perhaps it’s a feeling of loss of control, perhaps it’s an acceptance of the way of life here) I turned around, retracing my steps until I got back to that green box on the corner, now with more wires pulled out of it, the two men looking inside, a look of hopeless confusion covering their faces, where I purposely plotted a new course for an extra wide berth about it, avoiding that whole mess and the voltmeter that I now despised.

I had an appointment with a man from the village yesterday, an educated man with a background in accounting, looked to be in his early thirties, who had a business plan and wanted some advice. The meeting started well. He was on time, to his credit and a huge star next to the ‘character’ column under his name on my personalities chart for it is truly a rarity in these parts, and after a brief walk to his parents house, where he still lives which is not at all uncommon around here, even for married men, he showed me an official looking legal document detailing the management structure for a stone and cement company drafted nearly a decade ago in 1997. I quickly read through the headings and focused on several of the more interesting ones. All in all everything seemed legit and well thought out though its age certainly put me at unease and considering the riots of 1998 and the vast changes in the governments powers and its structure that have occurred since I wondered out loud about its current legal relevance. He assured me that the legal aspects of the document were sound.

Not truly believing him, its not that I didn’t trust him but unless he had a lawyer go over the document before I did he is way out of his league in making such a judgment call, but not wanting to dwell on it I pushed forward and asked him what sort of advice he sought from me. He replied by saying without hesitation that wanted me to find him investors for his proposed business. There are several problems I had with this request. First, that because he knew I was an American he assumed I know people with money. Second, that even if I did know such people he thought I would go and do such a thing for him. And finally, that he was looking for a quick answer to his problem that he didn’t want to solve on his own. Casting those problems aside I set to work helping him as I thought a Peace Corps volunteer should, a Peace Corps volunteer way out of his league at that. I began by explaining to him what I thought investors look for, a credible investment with minimal risk. I furthermore told him that the management structure that he possessed was a great start but there was much work to be done before anyone would consider investing money with his company. So, instead of giving him answers and telling him directly what to do I proposed to him a set of questions that I hoped would put him on the right path to obtaining the necessary background information I felt any investor would require. He wrote my questions down and seemed to understand the direction I was trying to push him in – one of research, preparation, accountability, and a business mentality.

This part of our conversation, however, was not directly associated with what left me with the uneasy feeling I had about me when I left.

Lesotho - The Mountain Kingdom aka The Switzerland of Africa. I can tell you that that is no figurative description. This place is definitely a kingdom, as King Letsie III would certainly attest to (though in recent times in name only as the parliament has assumed near complete control) and one endless chain of mountains that sit atop a plateau, called the ‘lowlands,’ that forms a crescent along the western border and never drops below 1,000 meters above sea level.

This place is a rock.

And it dawned on me, sometime during the middle of our conversation, that his proposal was for the creation of a stone and cement company and that he was planning on setting up shop on one of the rock outcroppings scattered fruitfully throughout the Kingdom to break it down, cut it up, crush it, shape it, destroy it and, once it was used up, move on to the next one. I was heartbroken. I suppose it was the magnitude and proximity of the operation and my realization of the immediate implications our conversation were going to have that troubled me most. But, despite myself, I understood that this is how things work, how people have for centuries shaped the land around them for food, natural resources and, more recently, profit. And so, with that I bit down hard on my own feelings and promised to perform my duty and teach him what I know about business and I may, whether I like it or not, ultimately set him and those around me on the path so many of us choose to ignore but benefit from nonetheless. I understand now that in this world, or at least the world they strive for, you are to take advantage of what you’ve got and, well, if rocks are what this Mountain is made of rocks are what is going to have to make them rich.

Strange thing happened to me while I was running sprints on the local soccer field today. Aside from the kids who stopped and watched me, some laughing, while on their way to school, a mother came up to me, wearing sandals, and asked me for my shoes. She said she wanted to run with me but didn’t have any money to buy shoes. I pretended to not understand her to buy myself some time to try and come up with a clever way to deflect the question away from the subject of money and/or her lack thereof. Thinking of nothing better, I suggested to her that she didn’t need shoes and that she could easily wrap the beautiful blanket wrapped about her waist (commonly worn over dresses or skirts for warmth and/or style) around her feet and join me. She laughed, and I continued on my way, feeling I had successfully won this time, just one of many, where I am forced to play verbal games with people for the things that they want that I have or that they perceive that I have.

Oh but how wrong I was.

Still running, while I’m bending the corner, turning back to face the site of my encounter with this women across the field, I see that she has stripped off the blanket around her waist, taken off her sandals, and begun running barefoot toward me. Aware that this woman was trying to prove a point and possessed an unusual strength of will and determination I waived to her as we crossed paths, said hello, again, and continued on, trying my best to conceal my surprise and my next move – she had obviously one-upped me.

What to do now? I increased my pace thinking maybe I could deflect her jab with a little physical dominance, lapping her several times in the process. Ah, what a silly, barbaric man I am for this was obviously not a battle of speed or stamina and my actions had no affect on her. Defeated, I decided to wait her out, wait until she tired and stopped to rest so that I could once again engage her in conversation and resume our battle of words and wits.

As soon as I spotted her pace slow from a trot to an awkward gait and then, finally, to a stop, her back bent over, hands resting on her knees, I seized the moment, tired myself, and darted, as best I could, from across the field and came to a stop beside her. She turned to me and with a look nearing spite she looked at me and once again and said she had no money to buys shoes and that I really ought to buy some for her because she, obviously, wanted to run. Now, as much as I admired her actions and her determination and her lack of fear I have decided to not, ever, give money to anyone so long as I am a Peace Corps volunteer. Some may argue otherwise but I feel that there are a number of reasons why it this stance is justified. First, we are here to build capacity and capacity is not built through charity and sympathy. Second, should I begin to give money away it will create expectations on the part of host country nationals that all Peace Corps volunteers, namely those that will join me or replace me at or near my site in the future, will do the same. Finally, and this point is arguable, I am a volunteer, living on a stipend, appropriate and representative of the lifestyles (i.e. allowances for transportation to teach at schools, visit youth groups and support groups, teaching materials, etc) we are expected to lead, that is modest and not disproportionate to those lives around us.

And so, feeling that I could take no other course except to explain to her who I was and what I came here to do I told her that I was with the Peace Corps, here to teach HIV/AIDS, and a volunteer who does not get paid. That frightful look of spite in her eyes, masked but not hidden by the physical exhaustion on her face, turned to one of joy and understanding as she took my hand, shook it, and told me, ‘thank you’ and pointed to her house nearby, welcoming me to stop by anytime. I may not have won the battle but I did win a friend and her respect and that is good enough for me.

(In hindsight, I suppose I could have taken off my shoes ran barefoot too but, really though, my feet nor determination would have been able to handle such abuse)

As I was filling up a bucket of water today at the tap outside my families’ house it dawned on me – I turn the spigot to the left and the spout opens and I turn it to the right and it closes. Now, in a country where the toilet flushes counterclockwise and cars drive on the left I’m thinking people might find it a might bit confusing to have their screws screwing in such a screwy manner.

I think I might like to petition the Lesotho parliament about this one. Maybe they could heed my observation with a proclamation or mandate of sorts. It could go something like, ‘hence forth, all things that screw shall now and for ever screw as things were once unscrewed, ending all confusion and bringing harmony and continuity to all screws with their surroundings so they that are never, ever, again screwed.’

I don’t get to the internet very often so if anyone wants to send me a letter or a, ahem, package of goodies, my new address is:

W. Michael Wong, PCV

P.O. Box 145

Peka 340

Lesotho

Southern Africa

People here are quite superstitious and Christian (~70%) so I’ve been told that if you put crosses or pictures of Jesus on the packages Lesotho customs won’t even open or inspect them.

My favorite part of the day here are my mornings. I get to sit down, enjoy a few cups of hot coffee, and write. Coincidentally, it’s the only part of my day that has become routinized. I wonder if that’s the Westerner in me…

When people just ‘drop by’ here I don’t understand how people can stand it. I am, at the moment, speaking of one person in particular (who will remain anonymous), though it is universally practiced. No one has ever stopped by here with anything but the best of intentions (including the individual in question) but it’s really starting to ware on my patience and sanity. Despite this, I would like to hold all of my frustrations in (at least toward the people in my village) and try to tolerate it as long as possible because I think it will be a formidable challenge for me and one that will make me grow positively.

When people stop by and want to talk about something or are seeking business or HIV/AIDS advice I have no problems. But, sometimes, when people knock on my door, at all times of the day mind you, with nothing to do or say, let themselves in, take a seat, and wait for and expect me to entertain them with food/drink/lively conversation I just can’t always take it. I understand that these individuals just want to get to know me better, see how I live, see what I cook and eat, and see what kind of host I am but, honestly, I need some time to myself.

I suppose it’s the lack of long distance communication capabilities (cell phones, land lands, IM, etc) that exist in village life that requires ones’ door to be forever (at least) cracked open when at home. If people need to talk to you or just want to hang out they can’t call first to see if you’re up to it and, so, well, people just drop on by.

The basic framework of my position here as a Peace Corps volunteer is coordinated and confirmed entirely by the Peace Corps staff and Basotho organizations. Every volunteer is partnered with a local NGO/CBO/government agency/support group/etc with whom their primary work is supposed to be done. Specific assignments to qualifying organizations are dependent on your skills, training, local language abilities, and personal health history.

As I mentioned previously, during PCT or Peace Corps Training I was being taught as an HIV/AIDS advisor, meaning I received training specific to teaching the prevention and spread of HIV/AIDS and program development relevant to this cause. And, now, as a volunteer I am partnered with two organizations – the Lesotho Red Cross (LRC) which is locally managed but, for the moment, supported and organized by their British and German Red Cross affiliates; and the LMC, a local CBO (Community Based Organization) composed of a group of around 12 people, mainly elderly members of the community living off of the standard government pensions of R150 (~$20) per month, who are looking to make a little extra money on the side. And, by the way, the LMC named their organization after their local soccer team.

From those two organizations, the LRC and the LMC, I am placed into a partnership with one person from each respective group with whom I am to work with or do work complimentary to their own goals or the goals of their organizations. These are my ‘counterparts,’ as Peace Corps lingo goes.

Oddly enough, perhaps there is some irony to be found but I have yet to dig deeply in thought on it, both groups have asked for assistance with income generation or small business development. This job, therefore, requires the skills and information taught to the Youth and Small Business (YSB) sector of my cohort and certainly not those taught to me while in HIV/AIDS training.

I am not angry, sad, or frustrated but strangely excited by this unexpected turn of events. It gives me an opportunity to stretch my capacity for flexibility and adaptation, to build my skills for creative and reactive thinking, and to learn the academic basics and realities of, for me, a new school of philosophy and thought.

With a belated clarity of understanding of the road ahead of me it dawned on me this afternoon, while on a walk through the village working through the mental and emotional strains I have been experiencing with my adjustment to the way of life here that I am just beginning to understand, that these next two years will undoubtedly change me forever.

So, I think I’ve mentioned this before but I’ll say it again. There is a significant contingent of Chinese companies that have migrated to Lesotho to open up garment shops. One of their major locations is actually quite close to me, just a half hour drive north in a town called Maputsoe.

Why?

I don’t know really and find it odd myself. One reason might be for the good old reason of ‘saving a buck’ because, apparently, they only pay their laborers R28 per nine hour work day which works out to be approximately $4.00.

I suppose that’s not too bad considering that the best estimate is that 40% of the Basotho live on less than $1.00 per day or, in local currency, about R7.

International economics.

Bah.

All I know is that the Rand is falling. When I first got here it was just over six Rand to the Dollar. Now, after a couple of months it’s nearly seven and a half rand to the Dollar. If only I had some money to buy something.

Wow. Today I’ve been totally blown away not by the efficiency of the Lesotho police system but by how much someone will do for what back at home one would consider an acquaintance or even a stranger.

This afternoon, while I was out of town on business, a man came to my house in Peka and dropped off the contents of my wallet that was stolen just over a week ago (see 28/08/06). The wallet and cash were either never recovered or lost in transit but all of my cards, including my bank card, credit card, and driver’s license were there. The man who brought them to me took a taxi, on his own dime, all the way from the site of the incident (his hometown) just to return the recovered contents to me in person.

This man, to whom I am indebted to in such a way that I have yet to discover how to repay, is not with the local police (who had, at the time of reporting the theft, told me they knew who had done it and would contact me as soon as he was found) but an (above?) average Basotho citizen.

I know him because he stands by the side of one of the major roads leading to and from the only bus stop/taxi stand in the camp town and collects passengers from the street and loads them onto the passing cars and vans for a modest fee of R5 from each respective taxi driver utilizing his services. I’m not sure exactly how and why this system works for him and the taxi service as a whole but it reeks of Mafioso/Triad-esque taxing systems. Whatever the case and whomever he happens to work for is slightly tangential, an assumption on my part, and, as you can see, obviously not representative of his character.

While waiting for a lift I had stopped and talked to him on several occasions, the first couple of times going through my usual routine here for trying to engage people in conversation – your unchanging hello (Lumela), followed by whichever of the many, ‘how are you’s,’ available for use in this language that I feel is appropriate at the time (usually dependent on the age of the individual I am speaking to), and then, from there, find out where they live, where they work, what kind of work they do, etc. On the day of the incident, on my way back home, our conversation turned, given my sour mood at the time, to what had happened to me just hours earlier. I distinctly remember his reaction after I told him what happened – his eyes turned from mine, stared off into the distance and, as he thought something to himself, his brow furrowed and his eyelids closed ever so slightly and, just as if it this was his town and he was the sheriff, told me he would get my things back for me. After his thoughts turned back to our conversation at hand, we lamented together about the presence of tsotsi (thieves) in Lesotho and the United States and just then, as our conversation was coming to a close, a taxi conveniently came by his road and pulled off to the side to wait for more passengers. As I climbed in we said our goodbyes and he again, with that same look in his eyes, told me he would get my things back to me.

One week, a police report, and a Peace Corps incidence report later, with all of my cards in hand, the man kept his word and earned my respect, friendship, and trust.